Lowest moment?
Yes, in Job chapter 3 the Book’s protagonist laments: “After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.” Job 3:1-2
He “cursed” his day (of birth). Really the night of his conception as well!
After he lost all his possessions.
After his health disintegrated.
After his Wife urged him to curse God.
After his three so-called “friends” came and were “shocked” at Job’s miserable condition. They didn’t even recognize him, he being so grief torn!
“After (all) this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.”
That’s as close as he came to ever cursing God, the abominable act Satan predicted Job would do immediately after all his “calamities” hit him.
Yet Job did NOT curse God, no where in the Book, and at no time in his whole life!
Job here is suffering.
He actually (in chapter) 3 seems to “reverse” the days of creation, thus (somehow) eradicating the very day of his birth! Excising it from the calendar! “Let it (that day) not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.” Job 3:6
But in his reversal, he does not even mention the creation of man!
And at the end of Job’s un-creation poem … he does not find “rest” as God did … rather, “trouble,” the opposite of rest! Read it: “I was not in safety, NEITHER HAD I REST, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.” Job 3:26, the last verse in the chapter.
Job … that discouraged.
That skeptical.
That pessimistic.
That “low.”
But, wait a minute!
Jeremiah (the great prophet) felt that same way on at least one occasion. At a time of “difficulty” in his life and ministry. Listen: “Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad.” Jeremiah 20:14-15
And Jonah was that way, nearly. “Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.” Jonah 4:3, followed soon by: “And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.”
And the great Elijah, too. “But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.” 1st Kings 19:4
But note, from Job to Elijah, none committed suicide!
None tried to end his own life. THAT decision rested in the hands of God, His Hands alone!
(However, Samson DID commit suicide … and is still named in the great Hebrews 11 chapter on God’s heroes of faith! Yes, Samson is in Heaven, no doubt! But let me be clear. Suicide is not a proper option for a believer, never. The giver of life, Almighty God, should also be the Taker of life.)
I’m just trying to demonstrate that Job is not that far “out of line” with other Bible “Greats” who also became so discouraged they despised their lives.
One more thought today … Job in chapter 3 (his first major speech in the Book) discussed creation … in an ironic way … but still creation. And our Lord God, in his major Jobian speeches … also discusses Creation! In the proper way, Job chapters 38-41! Thus creation orations “bracket” the whole Book of Job!
I read where the old British Preacher of last century, Joseph Parker, once said: “NO MAN IS AS BAD AS THE WORST DAY HE EVER LIVED. AND NO MAN IS AS GOOD AS THE BEST DAY HE EVER LIVED!”
JOB HAD A “BAD DAY” IN CHAPTER 3.
I ONLY KNOW OF ONE MAN (THE GOD MAN) WHO NEVER HAD A BAD DAY!
WHO NEVER LIVED BELOW HIS POTENTIAL!
AND HE WAS … IS … JESUS!
— Dr. Mike Bagwell